KeyBank Five Keys: Cavaliers at Warriors, Game 5

The Golden State Warriors have a familiar 3-1 series lead against the Cleveland Cavaliers, with Kevin Durant leading all players in scoring (34.3 points per game) and blocks (2.0 per game) in the Finals.

"We were able to get out in transition and score some easy baskets", Lue said after the 137-116. Got to be physical.

Go ahead, back them into a corner. I don't see anything amusing or anything to smile about. They were faster and more physical than Golden State.

Richard Jefferson set less than three ball screens per game in the regular season and just 20 in his nine games through the first three rounds of the playoffs.

Expect the battle to be joined as the Warriors, on the brink of an National Basketball Association title but coming off their first loss in two months, try to clinch before home supporters.

"They don't want just the basketball powers to compete in 3-on-3", said USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley.

So yes, we have reached the Second Annual NBA Finals Draymond Green Moment - the exact juncture when the championship chase seems to bounce to his emotional rhythms, which, as the Warriors found out last season, is not guaranteed to work out to their benefit.

The 2017 NBA Finals have confirmed what we already knew to be true: Kyrie Irving is straight up ridiculous. However, teammate Kevin Durant put Green's credibility in question on Sunday when he denied that Green contacted him immediately after the Warriors lost Game 7 of last year's NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers in an effort to get him to sign with the team as a free agent. That's the highest first-quarter, or any quarter, total by a team in NBA Finals history, breaking the record of 47 points previously held by the Los Angeles Lakers in the third quarter of the 1984 NBA Finals Game Three against the Boston Celtics. "We never felt like we were out of the game".

KeyBank Five Keys: Cavaliers at Warriors, Game 5

On this segment of Bay Area Sports Insiders, our crew discusses the Warriors needing to establish ball movement through Curry, how he can get involved in finishing plays, whether its reasonable to use him as a decoy and what Golden State expects from its superstar as it tries to end the NBA Finals in five games. No, we had not seen that yet. The Warriors' dreams were pulverized by a barrage of threes and a charged LeBron James, and all the observer could do was chuckle at just how good this team is, and how wrong the consensus opinion heading into Game 4 was.

"This is the game we got to get. We're going to keep scrapping".

What could be a coronation might also give the Warriors a coronary issue.

The Cavs also planned to have a team dinner Sunday at the same San Francisco restaurant they went to before Game 5 previous year.

The team that has made more 3-pointers has won each of the first four games. "For us, every game's a game seven. When I say his team, I mean it's not literally just his team, it's we got a group around him that can help him and create space for him with the shooting and the playmaking, and I think he's having the time of his life out there". It seems hard to believe Cleveland would lose at home down 3-2, and in a deciding Game 7, are you really going to bet against LeBron James?

"So it's all things that happen bad aren't that bad, when you take a step back and look at them". No finals team down 3-0 has even forced a seventh game since 1951. If Golden State closes out the series Monday, Durant will be the overwhelming favorite to take home the Finals MVP award.

As incredible as this sounds, the talk around the league from players, media members, fans, etc.is that this has been anything but exciting.